View But this Tulip(Emblem 40)

Can flowers be reincarnated? They can, according to this poem; and through that alleged fact the poet proffers a hopeful emblem of divine power—even though the alchemically-inspired process of resurrecting plants is described here as a labor-intensive “human art.” If mere mortals can raise the dead, the speaker asks, why doubt that God can manage as much after we die? What at first seems a general lesson framed by plural first-person pronouns, however, soon becomes more personal: the speaker shifts from reassuring what sounds like a broad audience, in diction ringing with almost professional confidence, to a much more intimate address which swings disconcertingly between God and her own soul. The speaker’s concluding analogy—if people can revivify flowers, God can revivify people—rings again with confidence, even as the hypothetical it hinges on (“If”) resurrects precisely the grounds of doubt which make such a faith-affirming poem, and others like it in Pulter’s oeuvre, necessary in the first place.

Editorial Note

The aim of the elemental edition is to make the poems accessible to the largest variety of readers, which involves modernizing spelling and punctuation as well as adding basic glosses. Spelling and punctuation reflect current standard American usage; punctuation highlights syntax which might otherwise be obscure. Outmoded but still familiar word forms (“thou,” “‘tis,” “hold’st”) are not modernized, and we do not modernize grammar when the sense remains legible.

After a brief headnote aimed at offering a “way in” to the poem’s unique qualities and connections with other verse by Pulter or her contemporaries, the edition features a minimum of notes and interpretative framing to allow more immediate engagement with the poem. Glosses clarify synonyms or showcase various possible meanings in Pulter’s time. Other notes identify named people and places or clarify obscure material. We rely (without citation) primarily on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the Oxford Reference database, and the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. When we rely on Alice Eardley’s edition of Pulter’s work, we cite her text generally (“Eardley”); other sources are cited in full. The result is an edition we consider a springboard for further work on Pulter’s poetry.

gillyflower

carnation, July flower

These flowers into their chaos were retired

“chaos” here might signal the formless void thought to have existed before the universe; however, it might have been written in error (perhaps from dictation) for “cause,” since Pulter refers to things retiring into their causes in lines 17-8 here and in Universal Dissolution6.

raised and reinspired

“raised,” meaning caused to grow or rise, or restored to life; “reinspired” meaning reanimated, as if through life-giving breath; see Genesis 2:7: “God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”; the speaker describes flowers that, having died, are brought back to life through a process known as palingenesis, the (supposed) regeneration of living organisms from ashes or putrefying matter.

With beating

alchemical processes; “macerating,” for instance, is softening by steeping in a liquid; for “calcining,” or burning to ash in palingenesis, see Thomas Browne: “A plant or vegetable consumed to ashe, to a contemplative and school philosopher seems utterly destroyed, and the form to have taken his leave for ever: but to a subtle artist the forms are not perished, but withdrawn into their combustible part, where they lie secure from the action of that devouring element. This I make good by experience, and can from the ashes of a plant revive the plant, and from its cinders recall it to its stalk and leaves again. What the art of man can do in these inferior pieces, what blasphemy is it to imagine the finger of God cannot do in those more perfect and sensible structures?” Religio Medici (London, 1642), p. 91.

Hermes’s seal

a hermetic seal, tight enough to exclude air; named for the Greek Hermes Trismegistus, identified with the Egyptian god Thoth, regarded as the founder of alchemy

gallant

gorgeous, showy

first principles

in alchemy, the substances composing all matter: mercury, salt, and sulfur (mentioned in the next line); more generally, origins, constituent parts

Virbius

In Greek myth, Hippolytus is unjustly put to death by his father but brought back to life by Asclepius, a god of healing, and renamed Virbius (from vir bis, “a man twice”).

cause

original, formative elements

dormant dust

“dust” here is elemental physical matter; see Genesis 3:19: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return”; it is “dormant” in awaiting resurrection at the Last Judgment.

all-quick’ning

all-enlivening

atoms

minute and indivisible particles, seen as ultimate components of matter; in a less scientific register, very small amounts of anything

indivisibles

atoms

story

life

Nature’s paths

The speaker suggests heavenly glory follows from the transformation of dust, or our earthly being, along “Nature’s paths,” those derived from the four elements (earth, air, water, fire). In alchemy, fire was understood to have four degrees, the fourth being the hottest; “degree” could also refer in alchemy to successive stages of intensity in the elementary qualities of bodies (heat, cold, moisture, dryness).

ere

before

Incapable of quick’ning till it dies

The speaker refers to the need for seeds to be buried (and thus “die”) under soil in a furrow or trench in order to return to life (or “quicken”) through growth. See John 12:24: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

Not like the resurrection at Grand Caire

Cairo, possibly identified here with the ancient Egyptian custom of mummifying the dead whole in anticipation of resurrection (one the speaker presumes, in the next line, will be disappointed), or with travellers’ tales, like that of John Greaves, who refers to “the tradition of the rising of dead men’s bones every year in Egypt: a thing superstitiously believed by the Christians.” Pyramidographia, or, A Description of the Pyramids in Egypt (London, 1646), p. 142.

And ne’er involvéd be with death and night

This line was inserted after those above and below, in the same hand but slightly smaller script and darker ink, to form a rhyming triplet.

hallelujahs

Curations offer an array of verbal and visual materials that invite contemplation of different ways in which a particular poem might be contextualized. Sources, analogues, and glimpses into earlier or subsequent cultural phenomena all might play into possible readings of a given poem. Don't show again